Are you crazy?” I put my hands on the seat back of the pickup truck and swiveled my head from Tim to his wife Becky. “I’m not doing this, whatever it is!”
Tim’s white Chevy lurched across a gravel driveway that bordered a dark field, and he cut the lights. Tim shifted into NEUTRAL and glided us to a smooth stop right in front of the pasture fence. A ridiculous grin crinkled his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Why not? It’s loads a fun!” Becky poked her blond head around to see me in the backseat, where Tim’s camping stuff and fishing poles poked me in the knees. At least hunting season had ended; tents and inflatable mattresses were a lot softer than his crossbows and ammo boxes.
Tim turned off the ignition, and the lilting mandolin plinks and tinny voice abruptly died in his tape player.
“Good. No more country music.” I smirked to myself, peering out the window at a spread of shadowy grass. Christie, my German shepherd puppy, put two paws up on the glass and whacked her tail in my face.
“You crazy, woman? That ain’t country music.”
Oops. He heard me.
“That’s bluegrass.” Tim scowled.
“Country, bluegrass, whatever.” I pushed Christie off my lap. “It’s all the same to me.”
Becky inhaled with an audible gasp, and Tim froze in his seat, hand still halfway to the ignition to grab his keys. “Oh no you don’t.” He turned around and raised a warning finger at me. “Don’t touch the bluegrass. It’s sacred.”
He pressed a closed fist to his chest like I’d pained him. “Bluegrass is old-time fiddlin’. It’s Gospel and longin’ fer heaven and laments of Appalachia. It’s pure soul poured out in strings, Shiloh. Don’t ya ever forget it.”
For Pete’s sake. Tonight I wasn’t in a mood for speeches about redneck music—especially when I had no idea what Tim and Becky had planned, and I had three unfinished news articles to finish on my laptop. I tried to move my legs, muscles still stiff from a five-miler before daybreak, and pulled a battered volume from under my thigh. I held it up to the dim overhead light as Becky tugged open her door.
“Shakespeare. You read Shakespeare.” I tossed Julius Caesar on top of Tim’s fishing tackle box. Which already groaned with Hank Williams and Brooks and Dunn tapes piled on top. Yes, tapes.
Tim put a finger to his lips and peeked over his shoulder at the darkened ribbon of road behind us then reached for his door handle. “Good stuff, that Julius Caesar book,” he said, nodding in its direction. “That Mark Antony guy says it jest right in his funeral oration—lotta things about honor and power that’s still true today. Y’oughtta read it, Shiloh. I’m sure Jerry’ll lend it to ya when we’re done.”
“Jerry? The same Jerry who used to sign my paychecks with a pen he swiped from Taco Bell?”
“Don’t sound so surprised! He’s an extremely literary man. Yesiree.” Tim shot me an indignant look. “People ain’t always what ya think, Shiloh. Ol’ Jer got me hooked on the classics. I’m jest itchin’ to read War ‘n’ Peace.” He waved at me. “C’mon, Yankee! Yer stallin’! Hurry up an’ get out.”
Hmmph. Literary my foot.
I shoved away a Styrofoam cooler and reached for the squeaky door handle, feeling a headache come on.
“Well, I doubt Jerry would be too keen on our little outing tonight. Especially when Tim keeps peeking over at the road like he’s nervous.” I crossed my arms. “I bet whatever we’re doing’s illegal, isn’t it?”
“It ain’t illegal. And Faye’s farmer friend don’t care.” Tim scooted out his open door, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth before leaning over to kiss Becky on the cheek. “ ‘You are my true and honorable wife,’ ” he said in his distinctive country twang. “ ‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart.’ ”
“Great. Now you’re quoting Shakespeare.” I rubbed my forehead wearily with the heel of my hand. As if bluegrass wasn’t bad enough.
Becky grabbed her jacket. “Aw, come on!” She reached back to punch my shoulder affectionately. “We do all kinds a fun stuff here in the South, and we’re jest givin’ ya a li’l peek at it. Seein’ as how you’re gonna be livin’ here a while longer.” She bobbed her eyebrows at me.
“Fun?” I reluctantly unclipped my seat belt and threw my black leather jacket to the side. “You call this fun?” I waved a hand at the dark fields.
“Well, sometimes we sit ‘n’ watch bugs sizzle on them blue lanterns. Or shoot tin cans out at the gun range, or birds ‘n’ stuff like that. Shucks, Shiloh!” Becky drawled out my name in her own distinctive way, which sounded more like Shah-loh. Two long, lazy, syllables. “We invented fun! Now hush and get outta the truck.”
She hopped out and yanked my door open, letting Christie jump down with a clatter of toenails.
“Speakin’ of fun,” whispered Tim, shoving aside a camping tarp so I could swing my feet around and drop into the cool grass. Scents of damp cornfields and distant honeysuckle tickled my nose. “If yer gonna play hide-’n’-seek, don’t hide in the bathroom! Why, one time I hid in the shower, and my big ol’ two-hunnerd-pound uncle come in there, not knowin’ a thing, and—”
“Stop!” I hollered, clawing for the truck door. “Take me home right now!”
They burst into guffaws and high-fived each other.
“Now shush, Yankee! You’ll wake up the neighbors!” Tim clicked the truck locked and pushed me away from it. “And make sure that dog a yers don’t run off. Here. Give ‘er ta me.” He clipped on the leash and pulled her away from a patch of orange daylilies.
“I’m not a total Yankee, you know,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “I know how to say ‘Staunton.’ ”
That ought to chalk up some points. After one year in this small Virginia town—pronounced STAN-ton by the locals, not STAWN-ton, thank you very much—I could even make biscuits and sweet tea. Not that I’d admit that publicly.
“Say ‘bought.’ ” Becky put her hands on her hips.
“What?”
“Just say it.”
I mumbled it under my breath.
“Told ya.” She winked. “You still got that funny New York accent. But yer gittin’ there, my friend. Maybe in another year or two you’ll git ya some redneck blood and learn how ta talk like me!”
In my cranky state, I decided to keep my comments to myself. “So what are we doing, anyway? I’m busy.” I tried to see my watch in the moonlight.
“Well, since you’re one a us now, ya gotta act like one.”
“If you think I’m going to start eating squirrels or something, forget it.”
Becky cackled. “Wouldn’t do ya more harm than that nasty raw-fish sushi you’re always talkin’ about. You eat grits, don’t ya? Adam said so.”
“Grits?” I screwed up my nose. “Gross. I ate grits once, okay? Because I had no food left in the house. And I didn’t say I liked them.”
“You will soon enough. Now git over here an’ let me put this on ya so you can be formally initiated.”
“Initiated into what?” I yelped.
“The South.” Becky dug in her pocket and pulled out a bandana. “G’won! Close yer eyes.”
And before I could dash off, she grabbed me by the arm while Tim tied the bandana around my eyes. Tight. I stumbled around and hollered, groping for the bed of the truck. Then I boosted myself up onto the bumper, stomach bent over the tailgate.
“Hey! Come back here!” Becky tried to pull me by the waist, but I wiggled free and plopped into the hard metal truck bed, rubbing my banged knees and elbows.
“Forget it! I’m not going.” I wrestled with the knot at the back of my head, which had swallowed several tender strands of hair.
“You’re really gonna stay in the truck?” Tim leaned over and peeled my blindfold off, his mustache and shaggy brown mullet grinning back at me from under his battered NASCAR cap. “With that killer on the loose? The one that knocked off that Amanda gal a few years back?”
“Cut it out!” I tried to smooth my hair back in place, suddenly feeling chilly in the night breeze that blew in from across the deserted fields. “You watch too much CSI. There’s no way her killer could be back—if someone actually murdered her. It’s been what, eleven years? Twelve?” I rubbed my arms. “Forget it. It’s just a bunch of kids pulling pranks. Leaving notes. Silly stuff.”
“Hey, you’re the crime reporter.” Tim shrugged, taking a few steps back as Christie pulled at the leash. “Not me.”
“I’m not doing that story. It’s a hoax anyway.” I peeked over my shoulder at the desolate country road, winding into a blue-black distance, figuring the lunatics I knew were better than the ones I didn’t.
Nobody did much in Staunton but smash mailboxes and spin tires, but Tim’s stupid “killer-on-the-loose” business creeped me out.
“Fine. I’ll do whatever you guys planned. But no blindfold. And you’ve got to tell me what we’re doing.”
“And then you’ll come?” Becky put her hands on her hips.
I sighed and nodded. “So what is it?”
“Cow tipping.”
Hands down, this topped the list of the most ridiculous things I’d ever done. The night glowed with moonlight, still and soft, and a velvet breeze swelled up from cornfields and pastures that teemed with the hum of crickets. We slipped across Faye’s yard, past the grassy spot where we’d set up her wedding arch and decorated it with flowering redbud and dogwood branches, and up to the barbed-wire fence that separated her yard from her neighbor’s cow pasture.
Whew! I could smell the cows already.
“Okay, now quiet, y’all,” whispered Tim. “Grab yer dog while I hold the wire for ya.”
He stuck one cowboy-booted leg on the barbed wire and pulled it open, leaving a space for us to squeeze through. Becky shimmied between the rusty strands with a practiced air, not catching her jean jacket on the barbs. (A nice jean jacket, thanks to me, the so-called Fashion Nazi who saved her from rumpled overalls and too-big NASCAR T-shirts). She gestured for me to follow.
Crickets chimed in low throbs across the darkened hills, and I thought of Amanda’s case files sprawled across the mess of my desk. The way she’d supposedly vanished without a trace twelve years ago, from right here in town, and the recent rash of spray-painted messages and letters the police thought might be related to her.
Please. This was Staunton, Virginia, not New York. From the little I’d heard about the case, nobody could prove anything—including foul play. Amanda probably skipped town and moved to a place where rednecks didn’t shoot the deer in the public park.
And if you asked me, the vandals were probably one of Tim’s sixteen first cousins out on parole with spray paint and nothing to do.
“I’m a crime reporter!” I whispered as Becky helped Christie under the fence. “If we get caught cow tipping, what’s everybody going to say?”
“Aw, quit being a baby! Nobody’s gonna find out,” fussed Becky, tugging on Christie’s leash. “Who knows? If ya did get arrested, might be Deputy Shane Pendergrass again an’ ask ya out on another hot date. He sent ya roses a couple times, didn’t he?”
“It wasn’t a date! I’ve told you that a hundred times. And I’m engaged anyway.” My silver ring glinted in the moonlight, stoneless. The best Adam could afford in our current financial famine, but good enough for me.
“So…where’s that gorgeous child of yours? Who’s got Macy?” I blurted, doing my friend Kyoko’s famous split-second subject change on Becky. “You guys are supposed to be responsible parents now.”
“Mama’s keepin’ her. She’s awful hooked on that little gal.” Becky shook a finger at me. “And if Macy’d come tonight, I guarantee she wouldn’t whine half as much as you, an’ not even a year old. Shucks, woman! You’d think you was scared of some li’l ol’ cows or somethin’.”
“I’m not scared! But this is just…just…” I threw my arms up.
“I don’t even see any cows!”
“ ’Course not! They’re over yonder. Now git!” Tim shoved the barbed wire open in frustration. “I ain’t holdin’ this all night!”
I sighed and rubbed my face. As long as nobody found out, maybe I could do this. Just this once.
I stuck one leg through the wire.
Tim’s flashlight bobbed a weak beam along the ground. “Watch yer step!” he whispered as we hurried through the grass. “Ain’t much fun washin’ that stuff off yer shoes!”
“Exactly!” I minced carefully around a brown cow pile, wondering if Kyoko back in Japan had the right idea. I’d lived here too long, and I was turning half nuts like practically everybody else. What, was I supposed to start craving those pale, soupy grits Becky kept harping about or spit in a cup or something?
I fell in step nervously behind Becky, scrutinizing every suspicious spot.
“So how’s yer weddin’ plans comin’?”
“Huh?” I lurched to a stop just inches from a brown pile.
“Your weddin’ plans! You are gettin’ hitched in August, ain’t ya? Or did ya call that one off, too?” She tittered.
“What do you mean, ‘too’?” I scowled, slapping aside some ticklish weeds.
Becky tugged Christie away from something stinky. “Well, ain’t this your second time to plan a weddin’?”
I froze in midstep, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that (1) Becky Donaldson was talking about my upcoming wedding while we ran through a cow pasture and (2) she’d brought up my ex-fiancé.
“That’s it!” I turned and stomped back toward the truck. “I’m going home!”
“Aw, I’m just kiddin’ ya.” Becky grabbed my arm between laughs and pulled me back, Christie’s leash wrapping around my legs and nearly knocking me over. “Don’t be mad, Shiloh! Yer jest awful uptight lately.” She put her arm around my shoulder and steered me around a muddy low spot. “I’m only tryin’ to make ya laugh.”
I untangled my left foot from the leash. “Well, talking about Carlos sure isn’t the way to put me in a good mood.”
Especially now that I’d found Adam. I twisted my ring back and forth on my left hand, missing him. He was working late tonight at UPS, and after that, helping take care of his older brother, Rick, a double amputee.
And even if he wasn’t busy, I guarantee he wouldn’t be tramping through cow pies. Although he did drive a pickup truck. And…he owned an alarming number of plaid shirts.
Maybe I should do more walking and less thinking.
“So what time is it now?” My eyes puffed, bloodshot, from two all-night story write-ups and a court hearing, taking Christie for her shots, plus wasting hours vacuuming and Pine-Sol-ing Mom’s house for a prospective buyer who “decided to go in a different real-estate direction.”
I’d like to show her another real-estate direction, all right. One right under the local train tracks.
“Time for you to start gettin’ yer weddin’ together, woman! Yer family comin’?”
“Family? You mean Dad and Ashley?” I made a face. “I don’t think so. Dad wouldn’t come if his life depended on it, and Ashley will be sure to come and make herself the star of the show. Bossing me around. No thanks.”
“Aw, come on. You’re invitin’ ’em, ain’t ya?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Why should I? They never change. Dad doesn’t care one bit what I do now that he’s got a new family. An apology for leaving me and Mom all those years ago? Fat chance. I know how he is.”
Becky pursed her lips. “Well, ya never know. Might be like Jerry and all his highbrow books and surprise ya.” She winked. “People ain’t always what ya think. And life ain’t neither.”
“Right. And I’m Garth Brooks.”
Becky tittered. “Well, how’s the weddin’ plannin’ comin’, anyhow?”
“Planning? You think I know anything about planning a wedding?”
“Tell me about it! When Tim asked me to marry him, my mama carried around a satchel full a magazine clippin’s like I was Princess Diana or somethin’. It’s all she could talk about right up to the honeymoon. Shucks, I didn’t have to do a doggone thing ’cept sample cake an’ try on weddin’ gowns!”
I stumbled slightly, feeling my stomach contract as I reached down to rub my leg. “Well, it’s not like I have a mom to help. So if I’m a little slow in the wedding department, you’ll have to excuse me.”
I didn’t mean for my voice to turn bitter, but it did. Everywhere I looked I saw reminders of Mom’s death—her gaping absence, like a hollow in a cow field filled with nothing but muddy water.
Becky clapped a hand over her mouth. “Aw, Shah-loh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’. But you ain’t gotta worry—we’ll he’p ya! Ya got what, two months or so left?”
“That sounds right. Adam starts classes in August, so we picked the fourth. No. The third. I forget.” I rubbed my bleary eyes. “I’ve got it written down somewhere. Besides, it’s not like we have money for a wedding anyway.”
“What about your book you wrote? Ain’t you gettin’ some cash for that?”
“Enough to pay for Adam’s first year of college, since he sold his business to pay my back taxes.” I fingered my ring. “And that’s all it’ll pay for. It’s a small publisher.” I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll pick up some royalties when it goes to print at the end of the year, but not in time for August third.”
“Well, you could always have your weddin’ at the gun range. I reckon they’d let ya have it for free for the afternoon.”
I tripped on a rock, laughing. A sound that felt good in my ears. “Right. And Jerry can play the banjo for the reception.”
“Tim does fiddle. How ’bout it?”
We chuckled together a few minutes, and then I looked over at her, night wind blowing strands of pale hair across her face. “Do you think I can do this, Becky?”
“Do what? Git Jerry to play at your weddin’?”
“No! Live here in Staunton. Without family. Without…well, anything but you guys.” I rubbed my arms, shivering not just because of the cold. “A city the size of a MoonPie. Nothing ever happens here.”
“You crazy? You just said there’s a killer on the loose!”
“I didn’t say that. Tim did.” I rolled my eyes. “I promise you, nothing big happens in Staunton. Nothing.”
“What do ya mean nothin’ happens? We go squirrel huntin’ sometimes. That’s pretty excitin’.” Becky stifled a smile.
“Don’t start.” I glared. “The most that happens out where I live is people squealing their jacked-up trucks and that petty theft I had to write up a while back. People stealing lawn ornaments, Becky! There’s no theater here. No subways. No…anything. Please don’t be offended. It’s just a lot different from Tokyo, where the city whirls all night long.”
My fingers tightened in an almost palpable ache at the memory of steaming noodle shops and street crossings jammed with fashionable urbanites chirping into high-tech cell phones. Cities crisscrossed with whirring subways and sleek JR trains, all going somewhere. Pushing higher. Reaching into a future gleaming with concrete and glass—while I tromped through cow-bitten grass.
“Shoot, we got theater! Ol’ Clive Clevenger gets drunker than a skunk every Friday night, shore as sunrise. We can git ya a front-row seat! Why, sometimes he shoots at ol’ hubcaps, thinkin’ they’re space aliens.”
I hopped an unexpected cow pie, righting myself with difficulty. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just the same old boring life here, day after day. I’ve never lived in a small town like this, and all these memories of Mom…. Her town. Her house. Her car. Her…” I kicked a grass clump, unable to form the word grave. “I love Adam, but sometimes I think I’m crazy to stay here.”
“Aw, you’d be crazy anywhere ya went, Yankee.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” I laughed, feeling an unexpected rush of affection at Becky’s slightly bucktoothed smile. Her harebrained ideas. Even her silly nicknames, which should be offensive but somehow weren’t.
“Well, anyways, family ain’t just blood, Shah-loh. Macy proved that to us. We’re your family now.” She patted my shoulder. “Don’t ya forget it.”
Becky untwisted the leash as Christie wrapped around her leg and trotted away, bending her over sideways. “Doggone it, Christie! Quit pullin’! Your gonna…” She let out a shriek. “Hey! Hey! Git back here!”
She sprinted off, waving her arms. “She got loose, y’all! Tim! Help!”
“Don’t let her go!” I hollered, taking off after them. “I told you this was a bad idea!”
“You outta train your dog better!” Becky flailed an arm at me.
“It’s your fault! You gave her to me!”
“Christie, you ol’ hound!” Tim lunged for her leash, and I watched in horror as the slippery soles of his cowboy boots slid on the grass, sending him careening between two cow pies like a skater on ice. He turned sideways, whooping, and missed them both—then leaped and tumbled after her leash with outstretched arms. Catching the loop between two fingers.
Just as she dashed off again, happily licking Tim’s face.
Tim and Becky bounded after her, flashlight bobbing—leaving me in a dome of starlit darkness. And utterly alone.
I stood there for a moment, motionless, and then waited for the moonlight to illuminate slight dips, hills, and spades of silvery grass around my feet. A misty cloud bank had come up over the hills, damp and cool, and the sound of my own breath startled me. Weeds crunched softly under my tennis shoes. An owl hooted from the edge of the forest, a desolate sound. I took a few hesitant steps back, wondering if I could find my way back to the truck in the dark without soiling my shoes with cow manure.
Something snorted behind me, thumping the ground.
I spun around and found myself staring into the nostrils of the biggest cow I’d ever seen—close enough for a blast of its hot, stinky-sweet breath to puff my sideswept bangs off my forehead.
I screamed and leaped back, flinging my arms up. “Shoo! Get out of here!”
The cow jumped, rearing her head, and lurched a few steps backward on the grass, moonlight glimmering in her enormous eyes. She stood there staring, chewing her cud like a Tastee Freez waitress jawing watermelon bubble gum.
Then she inched forward with another snort and sniffed my hair. The audacity!
“Go on!” I squirmed away and hollered for Tim and Becky, but all I heard was Christie’s distant barks.
Two more cows loped over, curious, and I put my hands on my hips, angry breath flaring. What was this, some kind of small-town circus? I needed to get home and finish my articles. Southern initiation bah-humbug. Becky could say all she wanted about fun in the South, but I drew the line at cud-scented cow breath.
Wait. Didn’t Tim say cows slept at night? Maybe they were sleepwalking. I craned my neck to see their bulging eyes in the darkness.
I twisted around to see across the rest of the moonlit field, but no sign of Tim and Becky. Just cows. And a few more loping over, shadow-like, their hooves making a soft swishing sound in the grass.
Maybe I could just…touch one. Really fast. And see if it tipped over like Tim told me.
And then I could get my tail out of the cow pasture and reward myself back home with a hot bath and an even hotter cup of my favorite Japanese green tea.
I wiped sweaty palms on my jeans and inched forward.
“Shah-loh?” Becky called from across the pasture. “We got yer knothead dog. She ran after some ugly ol’ possum. Shoulda seen him!”
“Shh!” I waved her away in a loud whisper, reaching out a trembling index finger. “You’ll break my concentration.”
“Shah-loh?”
I found cow fur and pushed, hiding my face with my free arm.
Nothing. The cow just stood there munching. I uncovered my face and blinked in surprise then pushed against her warm, fuzzy side with two hands.
Nope. She didn’t budge.
I leaned against her with all my weight, grunting with the effort. “What’s the matter with you?” I complained through gritted teeth. “Aren’t you supposed to tip over?”
A flashbulb and a snicker startled me, and the cow jumped back with a snort. A low chorus of moos filtered up from the field, and my bovine friends grunted and stamped in irritation.
“Becky Donaldson? Tell me you didn’t.” I backed away, horrified, as Becky’s shadowy figure held out something like a cell phone. “If a picture like that gets out, I’m sunk.”
Silence.
“Becky?” I whirled around. “Where are you?”
“Shush!” she whispered fiercely, dropping down on the grass as dark clouds covered the moon, like a bad omen. “He’ll see ya!”
“Who’ll see me?”
“That big bull over there! He don’t like no one messin’ with his cows. I thought Ron had him penned up.”
“What bull? I didn’t see a bull.”
As soon as I said it, I heard him. He gave a low, angry bellow, and suddenly the thud of heavy hooves pounded on the ground. Louder and louder, rising to a low thunder as the cows scattered in all directions.
“They’re gonna stampede!” Becky screamed, jumping up and jerking me by the arm. “Ruuuuun!”